Do you buy physical games?

Poll: Do you buy physical games? (1061 votes)

Yes 66%

No 34%

I've been going crazy lately with all the talk about physical copies of games, Brad bought Rabbids, Abby lives at gamestop....why are people still buying the discs? these games all require huge downloads/patches before you can play them, the disc is little more than a CD key at this point. Interested in opposing opinions, this is one i can't wrap my head around. Every game I ever want to play is available on my pc/ps4/xb1 right now, no discs, no surprise installs, cant imagine living any other way. IF you live somewhere with internet that is such shit that a download takes literal days, then forgive me, I totally understand the gravitation towards physical, but even still those games aren't ready to play.

Mostly physical. I rather dl a big patch vs a big game + a big patch. I bought Wolfenstein digitally and after I beat it, I had to delete it cause I'm still rocking a 500gb. Sometimes I want to revisit games but I'm not gonna dl a 50gb+ game again. What if you need to delete 3-4 big games? That's already 200gb. It doesn't make sense to go totally digital with these blu ray sized games.

I guess buying a big external helps but it just doesn't make sense to me why anyone would want to only dl these big ass games in the first place. Ppl talk about convenience but that sounds incredibly inconvenient. Also, I hunt for deals and they come sooner with physical goods.

I still buy a lot of physical games, I like buying collectors editions and stuff like that, but for multiplayer heavy games like BF1, Destiny, Overwatch etc I will usually buy digital copies of those types of games.

Not much anymore, no. The only new console I own is the Switch, and I don't see myself ever getting another Playstation or Xbox. I go all digital on PC, which is my primary means of playing games.The only physical versions I get are special editions, which I have also stopped doing save for very special cases.

I've gone mostly digital these days, but I still buy physical copies every now and then. Can always trade those in or resell them online for a decent price if you're lucky.

I'd say that physical copies are also still generally cheaper when it comes to consoles, but even the Playstation Store has started to discount new titles surprisingly quickly since the start of this year, so that might not be true at all in a few years from now.

Also Switch has such a tiny-ass HDD, that I won't blame anyone going for physical, in case they haven't upgraded the size.

Yes, but to be honest, on the PS4 or Xbox One, it has been a while since I bought a physical game. The last physical games I bought were on the Switch. The convenience of buying games digitally just puts me over the edge, because I don't have to wait by going out to buy it. That said, doing physical disc makes getting into the game much faster most of the time since you just have to download a patch, rather than a full game.

I'm a PC guy and with Steam and other similar services buying and managing digital games is just sooo easy. Going out to buy or ordering physical copies online seems outdated. I don't want the clutter in my shelves or having to go through stacks in the basement if I want to revisit something.

I may go back to physical copies if bandwidth caps become a thing around these parts.

I buy whatever is the cheapest or most convenient. Sometimes that's digital, sometimes that's physical.

Digital games often have big discounts, which is nice, but if I'm buying new I only get my 20% pre-order discount buying physical. And sometimes physical copies are just plain cheaper than the standard digital price.

The Vita is an exception. I try to prioritize digital as much as possible so I don't have to worry about cartridges. The 3DS however is 99% physical since I don't have a big memory card and their digital service is subpar.

Yeah, games are expensive here, especially on digital services (even Steam is getting way up there these days). The only decently priced place sells UK copies of games and ships them over, and they mostly deal in physical copies obviously. There's really no reason for me to get digital stuff except the rare occasions where PSN/Steam actually has a decent sale.

Nintendo stuff is lost to the ether. The eshop is complete trash here-- they straight up forgot to release SMTIV: Apocalypse, despite the Nintendo twitter announcing it. Combine that with all other games on that store having a premium price (also known as "gouging the fuck outta it") that never drops below the release price of non-Nintendo games, and the whole "locked to one system" thing, I doubt I'll ever own more than a handful of digital Nintendo games in my lifetime.

If by physical you mean a download code in a box, yes, when it is cheaper to do so, which is thankfully getting a little less frequent.

Edit: Should probably add the additional layer of irony, the majority of those physical purchase are through Amazon.

So the box arrives a couple days later, I open it, remove the code, fire said box in a drawer, enter code and download said game. To any logical person, this distribution method seems insane, but when there is price difference of 15-20 euro cheaper for a new PC game in physical form, what can you do? Sites like GMG are at least keeping this competitive.

It's seem like a perverse version of the all digital future we were promised.

I buy physical whenever possible. Even if it's a little cheaper to get it digitally, I would still rather have a physical copy. The only exceptions would be if it's absurdly overpriced, like if it's rare or an import.

I am legitimately surprised by the outcome, I guess im an odd man out. Id be ok with ALL physical, or ALL digital, but something in me cannot jive with the disjointed library of games on my dashboard, some of which i gotta go pull of out a drawer, some that are good to go. I guess i care more about consistency than format. I did buy one switch game, just so i could have something stuck inside the game port...felt weird having it empty like that, fuckin spiders man.

I like that Abby has bought a different view on game purchases to the crew. A reasonable portion of my gaming habit is still funded by the ability to trade or sell games after I'm done with them. Yes the trade in price you get from Gamespot isn't fantastic but it's a hell of a lot more than the $0 made from them sitting on a shelf unplayed or in a digital library never to be touched again.

I can see that if you truly never plan to touch a game again...but when i buy a game its something I want to have forever. I've played metal gear 1-5 over at least 20 times, god of war 1-3 10+, all of the uncharteds quite a few times, i go back to every Rockstar game pre-gta v, and can't see any game in my library that i'd be comfortable selling, never to see again. When i was 14 and needed money for pot I'd trade in every other game i had, leaving my once AMAZING ps2 library a pathetic husk, something i now regret deeply wanting to share some classics with my son.

I can't help but feel the digital version of a game needs to be cheaper than the physical version, hence I only buy digital during huge sales. Physical discs will always be around, just like a good paperbound book!

Edit: I was also able to trade in Splatoon 2 and get $70 back, pretty much the full cost of the game itself. Until digital game returns become the norm, that's another large advantage for physical discs.

I'll make the change once Sony and Microsoft stop putting an obscene convenience tax on digital games. A new game can cost anywhere from £10 - £15 more on their digital stores and it only gets worse as the games age.

GTA V for example, a fantastic game but £54.99 on PSN store today and for a 2014 game that's a remaster of a 2013 game is frankly ridiculous. Especially when a new physical copy goes for about half that.

I'm not asking for Sony and MS to start doing crazy steam sales but a little more competitive pricing would go a long way for me

Yes because they are often $10 - $20 cheaper (new) than download games. Madden 18 for example is 79 instore/physical or 99 downloaded (yep, Australia prices).

Also download speeds are still a big factor. Horizon: Zero Dawn took literally 1.5 days for me to download (combo of crap Australian internet + PSN being awful - Steam downloads aren't as bad, though I wanted to throttle Brad on this weeks podcast when he talked about a 30gig game downloading in 15 minutes)

I've stopped buying physical games. The last one I bought was Titanfall 2 because it was an amazing deal at the time - it was 50% off less than a month after release. It now sits in my PS4 forever. Before that it was Uncharted 4. Both of them I'm waiting for a price drop on and then I'll sell them off for whatever I can get for them.

I'm in a lucky position that I can do this. I have good and reliable internet, with no data caps. PSN is obviously still not great, but a game like Horizon takes maybe two hours at most to download and I often download it while I'm at work. Steam downloads are incredibly quick.

It's still cheaper for me to buy new games physically thanks to a local toy store here that sells them at €60 - but I'd rather pay the extra €10 to never have to use a disc, have it take up space, have to move it when I move etc etc. As for older games - I get better deals online than I do in physical stores. Physical stores here rarely drop their prices and I don't like buying pre-owned games.

I also recently invested in a huge external drive for my PS4 so storage space is now no longer an issue.

Finally - while it lasts I will continue to turn my PAYG phone credit into PSN credit. So every month I add €20 to my PSN wallet, so deals on there work out a little better for me.

No, I buy pretty much all of my games from Steam nowadays. Occasionally on GOG.

However I work at a charity shop, and sometimes old PC/console games get sent in/donated that I really want to buy. Like a week ago I saw some old Tomb Raider games in those old PC big boxes with the manual and everything, near mint condition. That stuff gets bought up real quick as soon as it's on the shelf though.

When I get a game (near) day 1 of release than I probably buy it physical. Just because it's so much cheaper. A gameshop near me had a promotion running for Destiny 2 where when you gave them 2 of your old games (not too old obviously) you could have a copy of Destiny 2 for 19 euro's. I gave them F1 2016 and Until Dawn, 2 games I won't ever play again for sure.

On the other hand, older physical games can't compete with the prices of PSN/Steam sales, so older games I definitely buy digital.

Used games are cheaper and you can recoup some of the cost by selling the disc. Besides that there isn't much point to buying physical anymore because as you mention, there are still normally significant patches to download before you can even play.

I'm in the strange instance where my PS4 downloads things faster than any other device I own so the install times aren't a huge bother. I've gone to mostly all digital (I think the only PS4 disk I bought this year was Puyo Puyo Tetris) since I don't care much for the physical aspect of games. I'm not into displaying my games in any way and keep all of my games in drawers so downloading stuff just works better for me. Also the fact that PSN has yet to charge sales tax here in Ontario means that most games are cheaper ($79.99 on PSN equals about $90.39 for a disk).

I only own two physical games on my PS4 (GTAV and MGSV) and it was because they were games I knew I wanted to get anyway and they were cheaper if I pre-order them on the physical store instead of waiting to come out digital. Everything else I own is digital only.

I buy most PS4 games physically still. You can often find them discounted on many websites down to $20 or $30 while the digital versions are almost never discounted in the same time frame. I also like having boxes and art (Steelcases!) to look at because I'm an older gamer that grew up with the NES and still own many old classic games. Another good reason to wait until discounts occur is the reviews will be out and you'll know whether that game is truly worth paying for and a finished product you want to play.

PC games are a totally different story. Steam has transformed how I purchase PC games and it's been years since I've bought a PC games from a store.

Yes. Love the feeling of the case in my hands, and looking at the artwork. I love going to the store, browsing, and leaving with a new game in tow. And digital games take up a heck of a lot of unnecessary space as a PS3 and Switch owner.

What you're saying about huge patches being required before you play is one of the many reasons I refused to join the current gen until the Switch came out. Thank God that's not true of the PS3 days, or I would be well and truly screwed since the online on mine gave out months ago.

A physical disc is just much more trustworthy and valuable to me than a digital game. Not that I'm prejudiced against digital, but I'll usually only buy a digital game if it's much cheaper there (Mega Man Legacy Collection at release, formerly PSN sales) or if it's the ONLY way to get a game (Virtual Console, PS1/2 Classics, and indies). Otherwise give me a good old disc or cartridge any day.

I'm about 50/50 these days. It really depends. But the library I have for each of my consoles is about half physical and half digital. Actually for Xbox One I only actually own maybe 3-4 physical disks for it. But I have a ton of games on it that are digital. Then again I have a bunch of 360 games that are back compatible with it too. For PS4 I have a ton of physical disks, but about the same number of digital games too.

For me it just comes down to price and availability. And i'm getting lazier to where it sure is a lot more convenient in not having to physically swap disks than just go to the game in the library on the console and start it up.

It also depends on how much i'm looking forward to a game. If I literally want to play it on release, the minute it releases, then i'll usually preorder digitally rather than waiting to go to the store the next day. It's really nice to be able to pre order and preload a game and then play it, usually at 11PM or midnight the minute it unlocks.

I'm more inclined to buy physical when it's a game that goes on sale at Best Buy or something within a month or two when the digital copy is still full price. At the same time i'm more inclined to buy digital when there's a really good deal on a PSN flash sale or something. I'm usually pretty good at shopping around before buying, so when I see a digital flash sale I usually look to see what the same game is at pricewise physical.

I know it's more or less unfounded at this point but having an entire digital collection of games still makes me uneasy simply for the fact of not knowing what happens or what will happen to those games. And not having a physical, tangible copy that is "mine". There's still stories every now and then of games just disappearing or being changed because of licensing issues. That's still one of my main hangups on preferring physical sometimes.

In a perfect world I'd go full digital but with Best Buy's GCU it doesn't really make sense to. Unless, I suppose you're willing to wait for sales on the digital stores 3-6 months later. I tend to buy a good chunk of what I'm interested in the first week though.

I do think that I'll spend the extra few bucks and go digital on the Switch though. I don't really want to mess with those little carts and if I do use it as a portable it'd be nice to have a bunch of games accessible.

@matoya: with the exception of odin sphere and yakuza that whole pile is made of games that i actively play/replay, i doubt that for me id ever get as many hours out of the entire switch console as i could that pile of games, but if you don't replay anything then i suppose thats a good deal.

I'm mainly on PC so I gotta go digital. But, there are a few oldies like Freelancer that never made their way to digital distribution of which I might pick up eventually, and it's still worth buying some PS2 games on Amazon every once in a while thanks to PCSX2.

It really depends on the game. If it's something I know I'll easily move on from I'll get the physical copy so I can sell/trade-in later if need be.I felt pretty burned by Destiny 1 for instance, didn't give them money past the first two expansions so now I'm stuck with it digitally. Bought Destiny 2 physical copy just in case.PC games, obviously not.

I used to during the PS3 generation, but nowadays digital is so much more convenient, that I haven't bought a physical game in years. The last one was Mario Maker in the Wii U, because (surprise) the digital store for Nintendo was a mess at the time.

It doesn't help that the export laws in my country are horrible and made by corrupt people, so buying physical games implies either paying almost double the price in customs fees, or paying almost triple the price in stores. Any way to bypass them as middle men is welcomed in my book.